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Coming soon if not already -- quadrennial spat over Electoral College

Some of you may suspect this column resembles one I wrote four years ago.

That’s because it does.

One player in a scenario about to unfold has changed, but not very much else. We’re due for our quadrennial spat over the Electoral College.

As in 2008, the Republican presidential nominee — Mitt Romney this year — may receive fewer votes nationwide than Democrat Barack Obama.

But Romney still could win the election, as Republican John McCain might have in 2008, even though he trailed in the popular vote.

Read the U.S. Constitution and find out why: Officially speaking, there’s no such thing as a popular presidential vote.

People in each state cast ballots not for presidential candidates but for slates of “electors” pledged to them.

In December, electors will gather as a group — the college — that chooses the president.

Each state gets a number of votes — called electoral votes — equal to the sum of its two U.S. senators and its representatives. Except for Nebraska and Maine, it’s winner-take-all.

Carry Georgia by one ballot in the popular voting and you get all 16 of our electoral votes. Win by a million, and you still get 16.

The candidate with the most popular votes usually gets the most electoral votes, but not always.

In 2000, Al Gore won the nationwide popular vote but lost the election to George W. Bush. There were similar outcomes in 1824, 1876 and 1888.

It might happen again. Like many Gore voters in 2000, many of Obama’s are crammed into just a few states.

In 2000, Gore took New York, California and Massachusetts by a total of 3.7 million votes but fell just 527 votes short in Florida. So he lost, even though he won the nationwide popular vote by about 540,000 votes.

This year, Obama likely will amass similar surpluses in New York, California, Massachusetts and elsewhere. But such overages — however lopsided — won’t earn him any more electoral votes.

In contrast, Romney’s best hope is to squeeze out a series of narrow victories in 10 or so fiercely contested states.

If he does, he might eke out a narrow Electoral College victory even if Obama garners more votes nationwide.

Should that happen, or even seem about to happen, expect yet another big flap.

Some want to do away with the Electoral College and declare the nationwide frontrunner the winner. Others want a runoff between the two top vote-getters if — as sometimes happens — a minor-party candidate receives enough votes to hold the leader short of a majority.

But don’t get too excited about such stuff.

Short of a revolution, it’s not going to happen. It takes three-fourths of the states to amend the Constitution and change how we elect the president.

When the Constitution was drafted, small states demanded — and got — extra clout as a condition of joining the union. The Electoral College gave them proportionally more say than the big states in choosing the president.

They’re not likely to give that up.

Try to see it their way.

Without the Electoral College, people there might not see many presidential candidates. Or much heed paid to their concerns. As it is, states of any size that aren’t closely contested are considered “flyover” turf by presidential campaigns.

So if Romney wins without a popular majority, expect another big flap.

But there’s almost no way to translate that into the required consent of three-fourths of the states.

So the ruckus will fade, and we won’t hear much more about the issue.

That is, for another four years.

Senior reporter Larry Peterson covers politics for the Savannah Morning News. He can be reached at 912-652-0367 or at larry.peterson@savannahnow.com.